


Lined With Guilt

by Le_Tournesol



Series: Found Family [2]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: AU, Asthma, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jake Peralta has ADHD, Kidfic, M/M, Nana and Kevin are good at Tetris, Ray and Kevin are Jake’s father-figures, Roger Peralta’s A+ Parenting, Stim Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22342132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Le_Tournesol/pseuds/Le_Tournesol
Summary: When Jake is seven years old, Roger Peralta petitions for rights to visitation, and Karen doesn’t know what to do.Or, AU where Raymond and Kevin move to Jake’s neighborhood when he’s a child and become his father-figures and found family.
Relationships: Jake Peralta & Karen Peralta, Karen Peralta & Kevin Cozner, Karen Peralta & Ray Holt, Karen Peralta & Roger Peralta, Kevin Cozner & Jake Peralta, Ray Holt & Jake Peralta
Series: Found Family [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608238
Comments: 37
Kudos: 530





	Lined With Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. This is a messy topic. Roger wants back in their lives, and Karen is struggling with how to deal with it. She is a Good!Mom. She’s just trying to do what’s best for her son. Title from “Too Bad” from yes Nickelback hahaha

VI.

When Jake is seven years old, Roger Peralta petitions for rights to visitation, and Karen doesn’t know what to do. 

He called her a month earlier and promised her he was a changed man, citing a successful stint in rehab. 

“I just want to see my son,” he pleaded. “Please, Karen.”

There is no roadmap for this sort of thing, no instructions, no manual. 

He was Jake’s father, but what did that mean in this context? Did he have a right to see him, or did he forfeit that right when he broke Jake’s arm, even if it was an accident? 

Does he deserve another chance?

She cancels art club two weeks later, but she asks Raymond and Kevin to keep Jake anyway. She tells them she’s going to have dinner at a nearby restaurant with Roger to feel out the situation, but she doesn’t want Jake to know yet. 

Neither of them want her to go alone, but she’s an adult and it’s her decision in the end, which they can respect. 

They treat it like a normal evening, but Kevin breathes a little easier when her car pulls up in front of the house. He pours her a glass of red wine, and they talk in hushed voices while Jake plays in the yard with Cheddar, a tiny corgi puppy they’d adopted a few weeks ago to Jake’s unmitigated delight.

He darts up the sidewalk with Cheddar hot on his heels. He dives into the grass, and Cheddar follows while yipping manically. 

Karen smiles softly at the scene and takes a sip of her wine. She sighs and then trails of finger around the rim of her glass until it hums softly, “I told him to give me a month to make a decision.” 

“How did he respond?”

Karen shrugs, “He said he would respect my wishes, but I’m not sure he won’t push it if he runs out of patience.” She takes another sip, “I’m going to meet with him again in two weeks. I’ll tell Jake then.”

“Do you think Jacob will want to see him?”

“I think Jake will want whatever he thinks I do, so I’m going to have to try not to influence him,” she answers. “I’m going to leave it up to him, though, when and if the time comes.” 

“I suppose that’s fair.”

“I don’t think anything about this is really fair,” Karen murmurs. “At least not to Jake.” 

Kevin smoothly refills her glass. 

When the front door opens and Jake barrels into the house with Cheddar clutched to his chest, Karen shakes off her morose feelings, paints on a smile, and opens her arms to her baby. He launches himself into her embrace while the puppy yips between them. 

Excited, Jake peaks up at her, “Mom! I taught Cheddar a trick! Do you wanna see? Watch!”

When he’s sure he has everyone’s undivided attention, Jake says, “Sit!”

Obediently, Cheddar drops onto his haunches and wags his tail proudly. 

Jake vibrates just as proudly beside him, “See!”

“Well done, Jacob,” Ray praises, and Jake nearly bounces on the balls of his feet. His grin displays his toothy smile, and the tension in the room lightens. 

No one tells him that Kevin has been taking Cheddar to obedience school for training twice a week.

They let him have his moment.

VII. 

Karen keeps a drawer full of chewable toys in the house for Jake, and this week he’s wearing a purple one shaped like a sea turtle. 

When she turns down the volume on the television and turns to him on the couch to talk, he nervously shoves it into his mouth. 

It’s not the most sanitary solution, but at least he’s not going to town on his cuticles anymore. 

In an attempt to soothe him, Karen wraps an arm around his tiny shoulders and hugs him close to her side. 

“Is something wrong?” he asks. 

“No,” Karen tells him and cards a hand through his messy curls. “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to have dinner with your dad tomorrow night.”

Jake jerks a little and gapes at her. “Dad?”

“Yes, baby. He called me a few weeks ago,” she admits. “He asked if he could see you.”

“Oh.” Jake mumbles. He glances at her through his fringe, “What’d you say?”

“I told him I would think about it,” she says honestly. “I told him it was up to you.” 

“Okay,” he mumbles, but she doesn’t know if he means that he wants to see him, or if he’s just acknowledging what she said, or if it’s something totally different. 

Jake’s brow furrows, like he’s thinking, and his brown eyes seem a little stormy to her. 

Nonetheless, she needs to know what he wants, so she has to press him. “Jake, do you want to see him?”

Jake looks away, licks his lips. “I... I don’t know,” he swallows and holds the turtle in his hands. “I guess. Tomorrow?”

“No, not tomorrow,” she says quickly before he can get the wrong idea. “No, it’ll be a few more weeks. At least. I’ll have to make some arrangements, I think.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t have to decide today, okay, baby?”

“Okay,” he says. His hand unconsciously runs over his tricep. “Can I go play, Mommy?”

“Sure,” she says. “Do you want to help me make dinner later? Ray and Kevin are coming over.” 

“Okay.”

“I’ll come and get you when I’m ready.”

“Okay,” he says again before he disappears up the stairs. Frowning, she stares after him, but she gives him the space he needs to process everything. 

Jake is quiet while they make dinner, and he’s still quiet while they eat it. 

He sleeps badly that night, and the next evening when she drops him off with Ray and Kevin his little fingers tap a staccato beat against his sternum. 

His nail beds are ragged for the first time in weeks, so she presses a tangle into his hands before she kisses him on the forehead and tells him that she loves him and that everything is okay. 

“Go play with Cheddar,” she says brightly. “Kevin says he’s learning how to play fetch.” 

Jake nods, but he doesn’t speak as he hugs her tightly, like he’s afraid to let go. 

He’s still standing in the foyer watching after her when she leaves. 

The front door shuts, the car door slams, the engine rumbles to life, and then she’s gone. 

Jake’s eyes follow the car until it disappears.

When she’s really gone, Jake pockets the tangle, and he runs his thumb over his cuticles, catches the loose skin, picks at it until it rips away, which is how Kevin finds him.

It takes some coaxing, by Kevin lures him further into the house with the promise of snacks, but he knows Jake isn’t really with him that evening. 

Jake’s homework is sloppy, and Kevin has to help Jake go back through each question to fix careless mistakes. Jake doesn’t laugh or doodle or pepper Kevin with his usual battery of questions.

Instead he asks to be excused when they’ve finished his story for English and ambles into the living room to watch TV. 

Cheddar jumps into his lap, and Jake absently runs a hand over his soft fur in a slow, repetitive motion, like he’s self-soothing. 

Kevin’s lips press into a thin line as he washes the asparagus they’ll have with dinner.

Jake’s still on the couch when Ray gets home from work. 

It takes him no time to observe Jake’s stilted posture and the mangled skin around his nails. Jake’s eyes are glued to the TV, but it’s clear he’s not really seeing it. 

After Ray has safely stowed his gun and changed into something more comfortable, he says, “Hello, Jacob. Would you like to accompany me while I take Cheddar on his evening walk? I was thinking I might like to go to the park.” 

Jake shrugs, which cements Ray’s concern.

Jake loves any opportunity to play at the park. 

His apathy is worrisome.

Ray shares a knowing look with Kevin over Jake’s head.

Jake only agrees once it’s decided they’ll all go. 

They let Jake hold the leash. Cheddar’s entire body wiggles with joy, but Jake is unphased.

“Are you looking forward to summer vacation, Jacob?” Kevin asks conversationally. 

“I guess,” Jake answers as he twists a loose thread on his t-shirt around his finger until it swells and turns red. He then unwinds it. “Gina and I are gonna stay with Nana again.”

“Ah, yes, I’m sure you’re excited to spend time with Regina,” Raymond says. 

“Yeah,” Jake says blandly. “She’s gonna bring her Atari. She’s got two controllers now.” 

“What an enjoyable way to pass the time,” Kevin says, even though he’s being facetious. Jake is too young to take him at anything other than face value on the topic, and he’s trying to be supportive. 

It doesn’t matter though. 

Jake’s somber mood is unaffected. 

Kevin wishes Roger Peralta wasn’t an asshole. 

Raymond wishes Jacob would gush about some video game or challenge them both to a race or play with Cheddar. 

Anything to replace the melancholy set of his shoulders, his cloudy expression, his quiet demeanor. 

They haven’t seen Jacob this badly off in more than year. 

It’s disconcerting.

Kaden told them she’d talked to Jake’s therapist, who he only saw once a month now, and she’d offered her thoughts on bringing Roger back into Jake’s life. 

She’d made a few suggestions, like spending short periods of time in public places and maybe moving toward supervised visitation if Jake seemed to be progressing all right. She was even open to having family therapy sessions. 

They sound like neat little solutions, but Ray knows the situation will be far more complicated. 

They’re nearly to the park when Jake finally speaks without prompting. 

“Mom says I might see Dad soon,” he says without looking at either of them. “Maybe even in a few weeks.”

“Did she?”

Jake nods, sucks on his lip, “Yeah. Do you... do you think he’ll like me now?”

Kevin is floored, and Ray is speechless. 

They’ve arrived at a crosswalk, but they come to a stop on the sidewalk. Cheddar sits by Jake’s feet. Kevin unconsciously puts a hand on Jake’s shoulder, and Ray finds his resolve and stoops until he can look Jake in the eyes. 

“Jacob,” he says carefully, earnestly, “Anyone who doesn’t like you is an irredeemable fool.” 

Jake idly kicks a pebble and nods, but he doesn’t seem convinced.

Neither Ray nor Kevin know what else to say in response to Jake’s pitiful question. 

But they carry on their walk, carry on their evening, return home for dinner, and then settle on the couch. 

Jake leans into Ray’s side, and Cheddar sleeps at their feet on a fluffy dog’s bed. 

Kevin reads Seneca while Ray and Jake take turns reading aloud from _James and the Giant Peach_ so Jake can meet his reading goal on his log for school. 

Kevin flips a page and belatedly realizes they’ve lapsed into silence. 

He glances up to find Jacob asleep against Raymond’s shoulder with an arm thrown across his stomach. 

Silently, they mutually agree to do nothing to disturb the anxious, sleeping child. 

When Karen comes to pick him up, Ray carries Jake out to the car and buckles him in without waking him. 

And then he brushes a hand over Jake’s hair and hopes Roger Peralta realizes what a wonderful thing he’s missed. 

VIII.

The first meeting goes well until it doesn’t.

They’d eased Jake into everything with scheduled phone calls with Roger, and Jake honestly was looking forward to the dinner by the time it rolled around.

Jake tells his dad about playing with Gina in Nana’s apartment, and how Mr. Holt took his training wheels off his bike last summer and taught him to ride without them. Jake explains that his best subject in school is science, but his favorite class is gym. He talks about Cheddar, who he adores, and Marcus, who is one of his best friends.

It’s kind of nice, really. 

And then his dad says, “So how about you stay with me one day next weekend, sport? We can stay up late and eat cake for breakfast.”

And Jake blinks. 

Mommy tenses next to him. 

“Roger,” she hisses. “We didn’t talk about this.” 

“What is there to talk about? He’s my son.” 

“I know that,” she sets her fork down heavily. “But this is something we need to discuss first.” 

Roger leans forward in his seat, and Jake shrinks. 

“I paid all the back child support, Karen. What else do you want?”

“It’s not about the child support!” 

“I have _every_ right to see _my_ son. You can’t keep him from me.” 

“I’m not trying to keep him from you.” 

“It sure as hell feels like it. Are you even thinking about Jake? What about what he wants? Do you even care?” Roger accuses, “What do you say, son? You want to stay with daddy next weekend?”

Jake wilts, stutters, taps his fingertips against his knee and makes a vague noise of neither agreement nor disagreement.

Then he sucks in a breath. 

“It’s not up to him,” Karen growls as she places a hand over Jake’s own. 

“It’s not up to you either.”

“It is _absolutely_ up to me,” Karen counters. “You’ve got no legal claim to him right now. None.”

Jake sucks in another breath that rattles in his chest and comes back out shakily. 

“Then I’ll sue for visitation, custody, whatever it takes. I’m different now, Karen. You have to see that. I can do this right.” 

“You’ll sue?” Karen repeats. Her eyebrows rise to her hairline, and then her eyes narrow. “You want to drag him through the court system? If you would just listen to me, we can work this out ourselves.” 

Jake’s next breath hurts. 

The argument is quiet, but they’re still starting to draw attention until it makes Jake’s insides feel sticky. 

“You’re being unreasonable,” Roger insists, but Jake is losing the thread of the conversation. He’s too consumed by the tightness in his chest, his noisy breathing, and then his next breath just _sticks._

It’s horrible. 

The world narrows to a pinprick, and he realizes too late that he’s having an asthma attack. 

Weakly, he grabs his mother’s sleeve, and then he distantly hears her say, “Jake? Baby?”

The next thing he knows is the taste of plastic, his mother’s hand on his back, his father’s frightened eyes on his face, his mother cajoling, “Breathe in, baby. Come on. You can do it.”

He tries to inhale, tries to get the medicine into his body, but he can’t even taste it, and then he hears his dad yelling, but he’s not yelling at them this time.

“Call 911!” Roger shouts. “Someone call 911! Please!”

The inhaler is between his lips again, and time melts away and slides together and wobbles and blurs. 

Sooner or later there’s a pinch at the crook of his arm and a mask over his mouth, and his mommy holds him the whole way to the hospital. 

Daddy is there, too, sitting across from them and holding Mommy’s purse with white knuckles.

Jake’s head spins. 

When he wakes up, the restaurant is gone, but his dad is still there.

There’s an IV in his arm, a mask over his mouth, and the bed is propped in a way that keeps him sitting upright. There’s a meter clipper to his finger. 

It’s dark outside. 

Mommy is napping in a chair, but his dad is upright and studying him with hooded eyes. His mouth is a thin line. His face is uncharacteristically pale.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Daddy says so softly that it doesn’t wake Mommy. Jake just stares. “I... I wasn’t there the first time you had an asthma attack. I was on a long flight. I didn’t get the message until I got to the hotel. I didn’t know, didn’t realize it was so awful. So I called your mother back and told her I was still going to do my next scheduled flight.” He runs a hand over his face like he’s tired. “By the time I got back you were fine, but there was so much medicine. Your mom made me sit down and read through everything with her. But she always took care of you.” 

Daddy makes a sound like a laugh then, but it’s painful, “Did you know I forgot you had asthma? I didn’t understand what was happening at all. I just... fucking sat there, watching you suffocate. What kind of a father...?” 

He trails off. 

They lapse into silence. 

Roger clenches his fists in his lap before relaxing them and placing a hand on Jake’s arm. He glances at the scars, “I haven’t done right by you in years, sport. But I’m gonna try. I swear I’m gonna try. Okay? Tell your mommy. I promise I’m going to do better.” 

Jake nods because he doesn’t know what else to do. 

It must be enough for Roger because he stands and ruffles Jake’s hair, “I’ve got to get to work. But I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

And then he leaves. 

When the door clicks shut, his mother stirs, and then she fusses over him, tells him about a camp heard about tonight scheduled for the end of the summer that she’s going to sign him up for, tells him that Kevin is going to come pick them up on his way home from work so they can get the car. 

“Did your dad talk to you? Before he left?”

He just nods again, and he’s suddenly grateful for the mask because it means he doesn’t have to talk. 

He doesn’t know what he would say if he could.

IX.

As his birthday approaches, Jake gets used to his new routines.

Daddy has dinner with them once a week, and they go to family counseling biweekly. 

During the hottest days of summer, Jake stays with Nana and Gina, where they sit in front of the window unit and eat popsicles and drink their juice out of bendy straws. Jake is great at Sprint Master, but he’s terrible at Tetris. Gina holds the apartment record until Nana plays one day and destroys her high score in one fell swoop. He’s convinced that Nana is unbeatable until Kevin tries the game when he picks Jake up and claims the top spot. 

On Father’s Day he calls his dad, and Mommy lets him invite him to Jake’s birthday party. He promises he’ll be there, but Mommy tells him not to get his hopes up, even though Daddy hasn’t missed a visit yet. 

When the day arrives, Karen makes his birthday cake and frosts it to look like a police badge, and Jake’s grin nearly splits his face in two when Roger comes through the door with a dozen balloons and an armful of presents. 

Their house is crowded with guests and noise, and Karen passes out loaded water guns to all the kids. Mr. Holt takes one, but Jake is truly shocked when Daddy grabs one too. 

When the game ends and everyone is thoroughly soaked, Jake squeezes his eyes shut, blows out the candles, and makes a wish. 

But he refuses to tell anyone what he wished for. 

Because then it won’t come true.

Mommy laughs as Daddy slices off an enormous, lopsided piece of cake and hands it to Jake on a paper plate, and Jake decides this is his best birthday ever as he shovels a forkful of blue icing into his mouth. 

Daddy stays until the very end of the party, stays after everyone else leaves, stays until Die Hard ends, the sun goes down, and Mommy tells him to get ready for bed. 

Jake makes a dash for the stairs, but stops, bites his lip, studies his parents with his big brown eyes. 

“Sport?” Daddy asks when Jake lingers a little too long. 

“Will you... will you still be here? When I get back?”

Roger’s face softens as he nods. 

Satisfied, Jake races to his bedroom to change into his pajamas and then brushes his teeth. He reappears at the top of the landing, and Daddy is still there, like he said he would be. 

Jake beams.

For the first time in nearly three years, both of his parents tuck him into bed. 

When the door closes with a whisper, he smiles, and he thinks about his new routines, thinks about his wish until he falls asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh do not worry this is not the end and we know what happens long term with Roger so....  
> Hope you enjoyed this one. Liked the first one better myself, and I do NOT like section nine at all. I was going to leave it at eight and I pushed myself to write more. I’m thinking about taking it out though? Thoughts?  
> Ty for reading :)


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